Pink Dreams Turn Toxic

by Carrie Pålsson

"You're so beautiful!" she exclaimed as I scrutinized my face in the mirror. I knew she was just doing her job, but it gave me a little ego boost. I felt beautiful. It'd been months since I'd bothered to slap foundation on my face, much less painstakingly apply eyeliner and mascara.

I preened a little, enjoying the purplish colors she had picked out for me. They really did look good. I looked good. I'd been using her line of skincare, Mary Kay, for the past week and I could already see a difference in my skin. I don't know if it's because Mary Kay is a great product or because I wasn't using any product to speak of before, but this was the first time since giving birth that I'd been zit-free.

I was riding high on her compliments and my enhanced self-image so I didn't hesitate to say yes when the Mary Kay lady asked if I wouldn't mind helping her practice presenting the Mary Kay opportunity. There would be no pressure for me to join, none at all. It was just practice.

I internally rolled my eyes, already determined to say "no" to anything that involved selling, but let her give her scripted speech. I knew I wouldn't buy a ton of products and run around the neighborhood, hawking my wares at Mary Kay parties. It's just not me.

I swear they put something in the foundation to make people completely take leave of their senses.

I never should have let her open her mouth. The lies poured out and selling Mary Kay suddenly sounded like a grand idea. I would be my own boss, sell a product I really liked, and, most important, would never have to recruit anyone, have a Mary Kay party or carry an inventory. I could just set up a website, tell my friends about it and the orders would pour in. With a minimal amount of effort, I'd be able to replace the income I'd lost when I became a stay-at-home mom.

In reality I knew it wasn't going to be quite so simple. I didn't expect to get rich quick or replace my working income by selling cosmetics over the Internet. I expected to host a class or two each week and make some pocket money. I knew I could get into a lot of financial trouble if I bought a huge inventory, but I was told that wasn't necessary. I knew that pyramid schemes were total scams but I was specifically told there were no "uplines." Everyone is her own boss. They recruit only because they like to work with friends.

You may all laugh and point and roll your eyes at the sucker now. That'd be me.

I joined up and became something I never envisioned I would be--a Mary Kay lady.

I was excited by the opportunity to get out of the house and meet other women. I used to be a teacher, so standing up in front of a crowd of women and teaching them how to wash their faces wasn't the least bit intimidating. I hadn't worn make-up regularly for a number of years so I jumped at the chance to get some up-to-date, hands-on training about the latest trends in colors and application. That's all I really wanted--a few hundred dollars a month, some time away from the house, and some new make-up tricks. I was dreaming small, even though my recruiter continually urged me to dream big, pink, Mary Kay dreams.

From the start I was told that I would be my own boss. I wasn't told about weekly "success" meetings or endless nightly conference calls. I was told that my family would always come before my career. I was told I could live my dreams and only work 10 hours a week.

At my first, and only, training session I sat down with my recruiter and made a list of my wildest dreams: an old Victorian house with a tower, a swimming pool, a published book, and a husband who didn't have to work out of the home. I knew Mary Kay couldn't deliver any of these dreams because I knew I wasn't going to work as hard as it would take to make that kind of money, but I bared a little piece of my soul to this woman just because she pushed and prodded and promised that within five years all my dreams would come true. I just had to sell a lipstick to every woman I met!

It started going haywire right away. As promised, I didn't have to buy inventory, but if I did I would be hugely successful compared to my non-inventory-buying counterparts. Buying inventory right away would entitle me to all sorts of bonuses and I didn't want to throw that away, right? Oh yes, my new director played me like a fiddle. Pink dollar signs were dancing in my eyes and I justified my mounting expenditures as business expenses.

I dived into my business and quickly booked classes with several family members, though I was hesitant to start teaching Mary Kay skincare without Mary Kay training. The training simply wasn't happening and I was encouraged to embrace the "fake it till you make it" philosophy that Mary Kay sells all its recruits.

Even though I felt like a fool and couldn't really answer any questions in the skincare classes, my family supported me in my new endeavor. I could tell their friends weren't happy about attending a Mary Kay party, so we were all rather embarrassed but tried to put on a good face. Only one of my friends was willing to attend my business debut and no one wanted to host a party. The website idea that my recruiter sold me on simply didn't work. You have to buy $1,800 of inventory quarterly to have it listed in the Mary Kay locator's rotation.

This wasn't what I'd signed up for. My recruiter told me that if I just wore my Mary Kay pin and carried my Mary Kay bag women would flock to me, desperate to host a party or buy a bottle of cleanser. Women were flocking all right--flocking in the opposite direction. I didn't even have to say the words "Mary Kay." They just looked at my pin and fled for their lives. Maybe I was sheltered and naive but I had no idea that people hated the Mary Kay lady.

I held appointments and parties and managed to barely sell a few hundred dollars worth of products. I wasn't even breaking even after the cost of business supplies were taken into account, even though I was working a whole lot more than ten hours a week. My recruiter was constantly calling me, begging me to come to weekly success meetings and order more inventory. If I just spent $300 more I could win a pink coffee pot! I thought she must be insane. I could buy a normal colored coffee pot for a fraction of the price. Even worse, people in my stay-at-home-mom group were avoiding me. This fun little endeavor was costing me too much time, too much money, and too many potential friends.

I was promised training, but it never materialized. I went to a few success meetings, hoping someone would tell me how to apply eye shadow correctly but they barely discussed the Mary Kay products. The meetings were about one thing only: recruit recruit recruit! What happened to the promise that there were no uplines in Mary Kay? It was just one of many bald-faced lies I'd been told. Mary Kay doesn't call itself a pyramid, but that's exactly what it is. At one meeting I was informed that the goal of Mary Kay was to turn every single woman in the world into a Mary Kay consultant. I'm no business genius, but how does turning your customers into competition make money?

As I sat through my last meeting I wanted to vomit. I had been fooled and fooled badly. I had blithely told people about joining Mary Kay and now they all knew I was an idiot. I sat and watched grown women cry and tell about the power of Mary Kay in their lives. I watched a perfectly scripted altar call that had nothing to do with Jesus and everything to do with money and greed and a dead woman named Mary Kay. I was in the middle of a cult meeting and no one else seemed to notice.

That's when I decided I wanted out. Thankfully I had discovered some anti-Mary Kay websites when things started going sour and I knew I could send back my inventory and get 90% of my money back. The company would call my recruiter to let her know and I knew I'd have to deal with her, but I couldn't just sit idly buy and let hundreds of dollars worth of cleansers and creams rot in my closet. I got the form I needed and avoided taking calls from my recruiter. When I finally did talk to her I had a plan--I would tell her exactly how I felt and let her know she was a liar.

The funny thing? She kept going on and on about how I was a woman of integrity, but I wonder now if she even knows what that word means. It didn't even faze her when I called her on lie after lie--Harvard does not endorse the Mary Kay business plan, there are uplines, the market is saturated and there is no adequate training. My arguments went in one ear and out the other as she continued to try to convince me to stay in Mary Kay. Her most bizarre statement was that I could just sell everything at cost and that'd be a great way to stay active as a consultant. Huh? I told her if I wanted to be a volunteer I'd find a little kid who needed tutoring. She even tried to convince me that I owed her money for products I'd bought from her months before when I first met her. I know she was desperate, but I was stunned by just how far she was willing to go to cheat me out of a few bucks.

My pink dreams were not overly inflated or ambitious, which may have been the only thing that saved me from getting completely sucked into the cult of Mary Kay. A pink Cadillac has no appeal to me. In fact, driving a pink Cadillac sounds more like something out of my nightmares--especially since I know you have to sell your soul to get one.